The Bewitching Belinda

Yes, my Belinda shawl is done!

I took it over to Red Purl this evening and was able to snap a few ok, a lot of pics! The shawl also received its fair share of ohhhs and ahhhhs. (Thanks again, ladies.)

Amy also likes to have new knits on the dress forms. I'm happy to oblige. I told her I had to have it back for the fair, but now I'm considering leaving it til next year. I think I probably have enough things to enter this year without it. (And I can only put one item in the miscellaneous category.)

I got the shawl blocking Tuesday. Looks about the same as last time, doesn't it. But there is a second layer under there. It was a little harder to block as I had to make sure both layers were stretched out. Not surprisingly, they were slack in opposite directions and it meant a lot of pulling. This is probably the most aggressive I've been blocking anything. It was really stretched out. But it can take it; and using the blocking wires helps to spread the stress around.

The result was even better than I hoped for. I didn't exactly pick up every single stitch on the edge, so I was worried it may come out wavy or ripply on the edge. But no, it was great (Yeah!) and the edges looked crisp and clean.

Gratuitous picture just because I can't resist.

This pin is available for sale at Red Purl and made a nice combination display with my shawl. (Pins need something to hold together to look good; they look rather pointless sitting on a counter, if you ask me. Give 'em something to do! I say.)

It's sterling silver and looks really lovely on the shawl. Just a little out of my current discretionary spending range. :(

Another thing I can't resist are these "see through" pictures. I find the left particularly demonstrative of the faux plaid pattern, but they're both nice.

Are you curious what it looks like the other way round? (I did, after all, make it with the right side facing out both ways.)

Project Stats
Started: 27 Apr '10
Finished: 14 Jul '10
Pattern: Belinda by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines (library copy)
Materials: Fleece Artist Mini Kid (mohair/nylon), 2 skeins ($50.35)
I don't see the plaid illusion so much this way; it seems more like the lighter pooling colours just give a general glow through the purple. I really like the vertical ribs on this side that run contrary to the length of the shawl. Having both sides really gives some nice options!

And now the scoop on the Belinda Club. Amy and I have nailed down the dates and some other details.

There will be 4 meetings of 1-1.5 hours each on Thursday evenings: Aug 19, Sep 9, Sep 30, and Oct 21 at 6:00 pm.

The cost is $40 plus materials and book, Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines.

Only experience needed is cast on, knit, purl.

Description – A “club”…not quite a class, more than a knit-a-long. This beautiful shawl is fairly simple to make, but may require some cheerleading to get it done! I’ll bring tips from my experience, problem solving skills if you run into trouble, and we can spend time together just knitting and pushing each other forward. I’d suggest strongly contrasting colors to really bring out the effect of this two-layer shawl. (Note: the store sample was done as a color-pooling shawl. I will be happy to share my experience with the color pooling, but this is not a color pooling class. I do not recommend trying it unless you feel able enough to do it on your own.)

If you would like to sign up, talk to Amy at Red Purl. I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun together!

Dogged

In what I might call these dog days of summer (because it is hot) I have been doggedly determined to finish my Belinda shawl.

Of course, I had the first half done. The hard half as far as trying to make all those colours line up. I was looking forward to working with a solid colour and not having to worry about that anymore. (And it's been great--I haven't had to tink back a row even once!)

What I wasn't looking forward to was those long long rows that are necessary to make the pattern perpendicular to the first piece. But after finishing half of the second layer, it isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be! (It does help to be doggedly determined, though.)

The rows for this second half have 208 stitches (compared to about 66 for the first) and when I realized that wasn't any more than many sweaters in the round need, I stopped worrying about it. It's not that many stitches, and just covers a long distance because of the large gauge.

Alright! Ready for some mock ups of how it's going to look? Here it is lying on a solid background (as it will across my back):

And now a couple shots held in front of a window so you can imagine what it might look like with nothing behind it (as the part hanging off my arm will look):

So far it definitely looks like it works better with the dark colour on the bottom. When it's on top, it just dominates the shawl and the other colours have a hard time showing through.

I started the second half last Saturday (the 3rd), and was really determined to have it done by this Friday. I can't remember why now though. Hopefully there wasn't an important reason I'm forgetting!

I did want to get it done soon, however, so I can hang it at Red Purl to promote the club I'll be leading on this shawl. No firm details yet but it looks like we'll meet four times over about three months, starting mid or late August. I'll let you know when Amy and I work out the knitty gritty.

Meanwhile, I am knitting two together and double yarning over like my life depends on it!! Despite the heat, I am still loving working with this mohair yarn. It's really nice...

Shawl: Half Finished but All Broken In

This past weekend I witnessed my niece's lovely wedding. This gave me an opportunity to wear my Belinda shawl. Even half-done, it performed just fine: looked great and kept me warm.

The big question was...how to wear it? Flipping it over one shoulder

didn't work too well as it wouldn't stay up, and isn't substantial enough to hold a clip, pin, or broach. (Plus it covers up my lovely necklace this way.)

I considered pinning it behind me

so that it would give both horizontal and vertical stripes, in their turns. But this was a little constrictive.

Of course wearing it like this:

wouldn't keep me warm at all. (And my arms tire quickly.)

In the end, I just pulled it over my shoulders and let it hang how it wanted to hang.

Here I'm pulling it to show off the stripes, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

The wrap blocked beautifully; it was nice and flat and the perfect size. The mohair was so soft, light, and warm. (It was quite a breezy day so I was very grateful for that.)

It didn't get quite the "wow" response you might expect. (Or I might expect. I'm impressed by it...why isn't everybody?! hee hee) A couple people commented, but not a lot. I'm thinking there were a couple reasons:
1. It was a big, busy day and people had other things to worry about. Guess what...it wasn't about me; and that's ok--not my wedding.
2. I'm not sure it's obvious to many that the stripes are not made in the usual way. My one sister (who does knit) even assumed the rows were perpendicular to how they actually are. If she can make that mistake, lots of people can. Or...
Or..
3. I had already completely bowled them all over showing off my Whistler sweater, new purse, and purple mohair lace T that they were unable to be impressed any more. Knitting Admiration Overload. Yeah, that must be it.

And to think, I still have to knit the other layer. That might really set the heads spinning.

Blocking a Beauty

A week ago I finished the first layer of the Belinda shawl I've been working on. There's a second layer that's going to be picked up along one long edge and knit perpendicular to the first layer. But I decided to not start it because I want to wear this layer next weekend.

Last time you saw Belinda, you only saw a few inches of a swatch sample. On the swatch I kept the colours lined up by adjusting tension, but that was getting me into trouble. For the actual shawl, I used a variety of methods.

At first I adjusted the number of selvage stitches, adding and decreasing stitches at will to use up the yarn as needed. (If my yellow yarn came sooner than the yellow stitches, I would decrease a stitch; if the stitches came before the right colour yarn, I might add a stitch or two.)

Later in the shawl I just adjusted my YOs. The pattern calls for double yarn-overs, but I would throw in a few singles or triples over the row as needed. I figured it would all block out (and I turned out to be right).

In preparation for blocking, I allowed myself to purchase a set of blocking wires and pins.

They allow you to block larger projects with very few pins. The work comes in threading the rigid wires through the edges of your piece. But once that's done, it's all easy as pie.

While blocking:

Since this was a rectangular shawl, I figured I could eyeball the width to get it right. After it was pinned into place, I decided just to double check that. (The blocking wire set probably included the ruler for a reason...) One end was 20.5", the middle was 19" and the other end was 20". Not too bad, but I decided I would adjust a few pins and make it all 20".

The pins and wires worked very well. There was no way I was going to use a million pins to get those edges straight and even. It would have taken hours.

Now that you've seen a couple pictures of the "organized" colours, shall I remind you how this yarn started:

Here the colours are well ordered and organized. (You can see the little bits of green that crowd into the yellow and the pink going into the white which later manifest in the shawl.)

Once the yarn was wound up, all organization is lost:

This is what would have happened to the knitted piece if no care were taken in how to knit it up. The colours are still very pretty, but I don't think they would have done much for each other or had a chance to shine. (Let me say again, very prettily coloured clown barf.)

But with careful choice of the number of stitches and some adjustments on the way, everything is in its place, and I think the colours all complement each other beautifully:

I'll try get some "finished object" pictures this weekend and share them with you next week.

Obsessed Much?

Oh yes, I've been bitten again. This time with a pooling scarf.

Ok, that might need a little explanation. Here goes: When yarn is dyed, it's in a loop, and is usually laid out as a very flat oval. Then the dye is applied in stripes. You can see what I mean here:
This is some lovely (very lovely) baby kid mohair from Fleece Artist. You can see purple was applied to the one end (where the loop turns a corner), and green to the other end, and yellow and white in the middle.

Yarns dyed like this look very pretty in the skein (as above); and sometimes can even look pretty--albeit very mixed together--wound into a yarn cake (as below):Troy thinks this ball could hang on the wall as is and be counted as art,

but I'd rather knit with it.

But what often happens when you just knit with it is that it turns into something that is very technically termed, clown barf. I have no picture, but I'm sure you can imagine what I mean. A knitted item with colours just mixed indiscriminately everywhere looking a lot like barf in clown colours.

This doesn't always happen; sometimes you get a repeating pattern--most often a sort of argyle a little like:but it's very much out of your control.

Until now.

I have jumped onto the "pooling scarf" trend, I believe started by one or both of the Yarn Floozies, wenat and Dotty. There was a class [that I didn't take] at Red Purl that first brought it to my attention, but when I was ready to learn, I just read a few of their posts and went from there. (Try these posts, if you want to see for yourself--minus the first one.)

So in yarn pooling, you work with the yarn to determine where the colours are going to go, and then work to keep them there as you knit. You knit across a row with either half a loop or a full loop of the skein and then turn around and go back the other way repeating the same colour pattern.

I am using the full loop because that worked out closest to the width I needed for the pattern. And this gives me green-yellow/white-purple-white/yellow-green:*Isn't that freaking amazing! It's a wonder. And yes, I am obsessed. (For example, I only have to work in the ends on my Odds & Sods socks to cross it off my Spring to Finish list, and I haven't because I'm working on this scarf!)

*A half loop would have given green-yellow/white-purple.

The picture is actually showing a large swatch and practice piece. It could have been the beginning of my shawl, but I didn't get the tension even enough and if you look close enough you'll see the left side is bigger and longer than the right. That was me trying to keep the colours lined up. If the dying isn't perfectly uniform then you have to work some stitches a little looser or tighter to keep things lined up. But I think I took it a little too far. And now my shawl is a large swatch. I'll be starting over shortly.

Anyway, it's a really fun project. The stitch pattern itself is easy and repetitive, but I do have to think about the colours constantly. There's been a lot of tinking too so I can adjust the tension. It all just feeds the obsession... (Stripes are a good way to keep me interested, but this has really consumed my attention, making me have to knit just "one more row" to see how it's going to come out!)

And what's this going to turn into? I'm planning to make the Belinda shawl from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. (Top left pic here.) Another simply brilliant idea. Two layers of mohair lace in different colours that, when combined, give an illusion like plaid. It's great!

Time to go, I've got a pooling scarf to knit!